Or maybe he was simply impatient. Whatever his reason for developing the plates, Becquerel realized he had observed something significant. He did further tests to confirm that sunlight was indeed unnecessary, that the uranium salts emitted the radiation on their own. At first he thought the effect was due to particularly long-lasting phosphorescence, but he soon discovered that non-phosphorescent uranium compounds exhibited the same effect.
In May he announced that the element uranium was indeed what was emitting the radiation. Becquerel initially believed his rays were similar to x-rays, but his further experiments showed that unlike x-rays, which are neutral, his rays could be deflected by electric or magnetic fields.
Many in the scientific community were still absorbed in following up on the recent discovery of x-rays, but in Marie and Pierre Curie in Paris began to study the strange uranium rays. They figured out how to measure the intensity of the radioactivity, and soon found other radioactive elements: polonium, thorium and radium. Soon Ernest Rutherford separated the new rays into alpha, beta and gamma radiation, and in Rutherford and Frederick Soddy explained radioactivity as a spontaneous transmutation of elements.
Becquerel and the Curies shared the Nobel Prize for their work on radioactivity. Somewhat less well known is the fact that forty years earlier, someone else had made the same accidental discovery. Abel Niepce de Saint Victor, a photographer, was experimenting with various chemicals, including uranium compounds. Like Becquerel would later do, he exposed them to sunlight and placed them, along with pieces of photographic paper, in a dark drawer.
Upon opening the drawer, he found that some of the chemicals, including uranium, exposed the photographic paper.
Niepce thought he had found some new sort of invisible radiation, and reported his findings to the French Academy of Science. Pitchblende is a mineral that is the crystallized form of uranium oxide, and is about 70 percent uranium.
Also used in in the discovery of uranium. Marie and Pierre discovered not only polonium, but also radium, through their work with pitchblende. In , Marie Curie and her husband won the Nobel Prize in physics for their work on radioactivity. She was the first woman ever to receive a Nobel Prize. Just three years after winning the Nobel Prize, Pierre was killed in an accident. Despite being a single mother of two and a widow, Marie Curie continued her research as well as teaching, as she took over Pierre's teaching position at Sorbonne.
In , Curie won her second Nobel Peace prize in chemistry. Marie Curie not only made huge contributions to the fields of physics and chemistry, but also to the world of medicine. Curie had studied x-rays and x-ray machines in her past research and upon the start of World War I in , she made advances in this field. She used her newly discovered element, radium, to be the gamma ray source on x-ray machines.
This allowed for more accurate and stronger x-rays. She also created smaller and portable x-ray machines that could be used by medics in the field. IN this way she saved many lives and supported the war effort through her work. Inspired by the discoveries of Roentgen and Becquerel, Marie Curie used measuring equipment her husband and his associates had invented and found that the source of radiation in the uranium compound was the uranium atom.
She named its ability to emit radiation "radioactivity". Marie received the Nobel Prize in physics together with her husband, Pierre, and Becquerel. Eight years later, she earned a second Nobel Prize in chemistry. In , Rutherford and his associates in Britain discovered two different forms of radiation released from uranium.
They named them alpha and beta rays.
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